Sense of futility

So this is my first official contributor post and what a way to begin (sorry). I was gone for half of July and it has completely screwed up the flow & schedule I had for myself. I hoped to jump back on the wagon today and now that the day is over I don't know where it all went. I miss being in an academic environment and the focus that it allows me to have on my project. I feel my brain has turned to mush and I feel unmotivated and unfocused. I'm four hours away from school and with finances the way they are, I wasn't able to keep the small room I was renting near school for the days that I spent there. Our public libraries leave lots to be desired, the closest university is an hour away, and generally I don't do well in coffee shops. I miss university libraries, I miss conversations with other university folks (other academics?) because even if we're not speaking the same language, the conversation gets my intellectual juices flowing. I need to figure out how to re-create my writing, thinking, and focus space here in my house. This is a house that needs desperate cleaning and major yard work. I need some time at the gym. Sometimes I wish I didn't work, sometimes I wish I worked more so that our financial situation would be more secure. I hope tomorrow will be a better day and I hope I will finally return to the draft of chapter 2. What do you all do to get yourself back on track and motivated when you're heart just can't get into it?

To coffee or not to coffee?

It's annoying to always having some thought interrupting my writing. I find I can deal with ear worms, my flatmate's cooking fumes in the kitchen and the crying baby in the flat next door. My manic habit of watching people at the bus stop that is visible from my window has even turned productive, in the sense that a few seconds break from the laptop screen sometimes rewards me with the idea I need to link two paragraphs. What I can't deal with is my constant bodily wants. I need coffee, tea, water, the toilet, a biscuit... this silly everyday life things break the dissertation-mode train of thoughts. Soon I find I'm more in the Homer Simpson-mode, wiping out my flatmate's crumbs and reading joke of the day websites. Today's is funny for its simplicity -- (Q: How many blonde jokes are there? A: One. The rest are all true stories.) -- but that just helps to stray me further away from the diss-mode. The coffee I just made is getting cold and my teeth feel dirty, soon the urge to brush them will put me back on my feet. How do you guys manage the silliness of routine?